Kurseong and Mirik Tea Gardens and Estate Stays

Why this is tea country

Darjeeling tea is grown on about 87 gardens in the hills of Darjeeling district, and a large share of them lie around Kurseong and Mirik. The Kurseong side, often grouped as Kurseong North and Kurseong South, includes some of the most famous names in tea: Makaibari, Castleton, Goomtee, Jungpana, Margaret's Hope and Ambootia. West of the Balason river, the Mirik valley holds Gopaldhara, Sourenee, Tingling, Thurbo, Phuguri, Singbulli and others, planted from the late nineteenth century on slopes running down towards the Mechi and the Nepal border.

Darjeeling became the first Indian product to receive Geographical Indication status, registered in 2004, which means only tea grown and processed on registered gardens in these hills may be sold as Darjeeling. The Tea Board's logo of a woman holding two leaves and a bud marks the genuine article. For a traveller, the practical point is simpler: you can walk through working gardens on public roads and paths almost anywhere here, see plucking in season, and taste tea a few hundred metres from the bush it came from.

The gardens worth knowing

These are the gardens most often visited or named in this land. Not every estate welcomes casual visitors, and factory access changes with the season and the management, so treat factory visits as possible rather than promised.

Makaibari and the village homestays

Makaibari is the easiest garden to know well. Its name means cornfield in Nepali. A factory was commissioned here in 1859, and the Banerjee family ran the estate for four generations; Swaraj Kumar 'Rajah' Banerjee made it fully organic in 1988 and kept much of its roughly 670 hectares under forest. The Luxmi Group has owned it since 2014. In 2014 a hand-made Makaibari tea sold for about US$1,850 a kilogram, one of the highest prices paid for Darjeeling tea.

What matters for budget travellers is the village homestay programme, in which tea workers' families host guests in their own houses in the estate villages. Rates are about ₹1,500–2,000 per person a night with dinner and breakfast, arranged through the estate or the village coordinators. You eat with the family, walk through the garden with someone who has plucked it all their life, and, in season, can usually arrange a factory visit and tasting for a small extra charge. Makaibari is 3–4 km below Kurseong bazaar, a 45-minute walk down the Pankhabari road or a ₹20–40 jeep ride.

The flush calendar

Darjeeling tea is plucked in flushes, the growth spurts of the bush through the year. Each gives a different cup, and the factory only runs when there is leaf to process. If watching the work matters to you, come in a flush month.

First flush, from about March to April, comes after the winter rest. The leaf is tender and the tea is pale, light and floral, the most expensive of the year. Second flush, from late May into June, gives a darker, fuller cup with the muscatel note that Castleton and Jungpana are known for. Monsoon or rain teas from July to September are made in large quantities but sell for less. Autumn flush in October and November is rounder and coppery. From December to February the bushes are pruned and most factories are shut.

Visiting a garden and a factory

Plucking is done by hand, mostly by women, who pick two leaves and a bud and drop them into baskets carried on their backs. Watch from paths and roads, and ask before you photograph anyone at close range; a smile and a question go a long way. Do not walk between the rows or pick leaves yourself, since the bushes are someone's livelihood.

Inside a factory, the leaf is withered on long troughs, rolled to break the cells, left to oxidise, dried in hot-air machines and sorted into grades. A visit takes 30–60 minutes. Some estates charge a fee or include a tasting at ₹200–500; others do not open to visitors at all, and photography inside is often not allowed. Ask your homestay or hotel the day before which gardens are taking visitors. Factory visits and fees change, so check current status before you travel.

• Best time to see plucking: mornings from March to May and October to November
• Wear shoes with grip; garden paths are steep and slippery after rain
• Carry cash for tastings and tea purchases
• Buy tea with the garden name and flush printed on the packet

The people behind the cup

Every garden is also a village, or several. Workers' families live in labour lines and hamlets spread over the estate, many descended from the people who came from eastern Nepal to clear these slopes in the nineteenth century. The estate traditionally provides housing, and the factory siren marks the working day. Plucking is skilled work: a good plucker knows which shoots are ready and moves fast along a steep row in heat, cold and rain.

Darjeeling tea has had hard years recently. Yields from these old bushes are low, costs have risen, and cheaper teas compete under looser labels, so some gardens have changed hands or struggled to pay on time. Many young people from the tea villages now work in Siliguri, Bengaluru or abroad. Homestay income has become one way families stay on the land, which is a good reason to stay with them and to buy tea directly from the garden or a named local shop.

Other ways to stay among the tea

Beyond Makaibari, many homestays sit on or beside garden land around Mirik, Sourenee, Tingling and Ambootia, run by families connected to the estates. They charge about ₹1,200–1,800 per person with meals and are usually found by asking in Mirik or Kurseong, since names and owners change. Several gardens also have restored planters' bungalows run as upmarket retreats; they are beautiful, but they are priced well above our budget range, so we do not list them.

For a mid-range choice, Cochrane Place on the Pankhabari road near Kurseong is a heritage hotel with tea-garden views, good for a single splurge night. In Mirik, the GTA's Swiss Cottages sit above the lake with tea slopes around them, at about ₹2,000–4,000 a cottage. The WBTDC Tourist Lodge in Kurseong is the dependable government option in town.

A two-day tea plan

Day one: come up from Siliguri by the old Hill Cart Road to see the gardens around Tindharia and Gayabari from the jeep, then go down from Kurseong to a Makaibari homestay in the afternoon. Walk the estate roads before dinner. Day two: go out with your host for the morning plucking, visit the factory if it is running, then take a car west to Mirik, stopping at Sourenee and Tingling. From Mirik, Gopaldhara is on the road to Darjeeling for the next day.

Taste at least three teas from different flushes before you buy. The difference between a first flush and an autumn flush from the same garden is often larger than the difference between two famous gardens.